The Perfect Prank. (Cox's arrival, open to anyone!)
It started with a simple prank.
Well, it wasn't exactly simple, but Perry Cox liked to call something this grand and tremendous 'simple' just to flaunt his apparent genius. Jumpsuit had traded him the keys to Newbie's apartment for a more effective dental plan than the one Kelso had set up, which Cox was only too happy to give him and the rest of his motley crew. Staring at the toothless faces of janitors as they mopped baby vomit up in the halls would only give him something else to add to his list of 'Things That Make Me Drink', and what with Jordan sucking him dry for botox money, he couldn't really afford that list to get any longer.
Besides, a couple grand here, couple grand there for a dental plan was peanuts when it came to making Dorian suffer. Random Girl's Name had been trying super-duper hard recently to get on that one last nerve he actually had saved from the wrath of both of his children and his bat of an ex-wife, and the bastard needed teaching a lesson.
Making Newbie believe his apartment was haunted wasn't exactly hard work. A few nights he'd awoken 'a little damp down south' with his hand in a glass of water, and then of course there was that re-heally beautiful moment where he'd arrived at work through the E.R., his hand superglued to the side of his face with no recollection of how it had happened.
It was childish, yes, but that fact wasn't enough to keep Cox from laughing with glee from the doorway as Barbie and Turtlehead tried to find a way to separate his fingers from his jaw. In fact, the thought of getting revenge on Newbie for every. Single. Damn. Year of torment he'd put him through made it worth getting up in the morning.
Anyway, Cox knew that once Newbie found out it was him, yes, he'd want revenge of some sort, but he'd never have the balls to pull anything off.
So, imagine his surprise when he awoke in what he presumed was downtown L.A., face crushed against the cold snow-coated asphalt, clad surprisingly in his usual doctor's coat, tee and Scrubs pants instead of the birthday suit he had gone to bed in.
Of course, he blamed Newbie. Jordan would've done something far, far, far less creative to punish him for spending the money for her botox on a new flat-screen TV. Like talk. Constantly. No, Newbie was the only one with an imagination that was on the fritz, and of course he would've needed some muscle, so either Turtlehead or Jumpsuit was involved. Still, the second he caught a cab back to Sacred Heart, he was going to take the person who had done this to him and string them up by their testicles until their cries could be heard in Zanzibar.
Cox scraped to his feet, dusting clumps of snow from his clothing and trying to wake up a little. He snapped a hand up to brush his nose out of habit and crossed his arms tightly across his chest as he looked around, trying to get his bearings. Where the hell was he? He'd spent a lot of time wandering drunkenly around downtown L.A., and he didn't recognize the buildings around himself at all. And not a cab in sight. Goddamn it.
His cell wasn't in his pocket, so he took off in a long stride to look for a public telephone. He needed to piss and his mouth tasted of ijustwokeup, plus there was the little fact that some poor soul had had the unfortunate idea to try and pull a prank on Perry Cox, so he wasn't in the grandest of moods.
He continued to walk, glancing around with some confusion as he did so. Why the fuck was it so quiet? What the hell was this? Still, he was too angry to really give a crap about his surroundings right now - he was too focused on getting back to Sacred Heart so he could personally find Newbie and make him eat a carefully concocted blend of antibacterial soap, stale milk and the contents of that patient in room three-four-seven's bedpan until he was begging for death.
In other words, it was a reasonably normal morning for Perry Cox, despite the unusual circumstances.
... Wait a fucking second.
Was it... was it snowing?!
In his enraged thoughts, Cox had missed the number one pointer that might lead him to believe that this wasn't Los Angeles after all. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he glanced around himself at the snow-coated city, a look of sheer disbelief in his eyes.